The UVA Biocomplexity Institute has received a $1.44M award from the National Science Foundation for a Virtual Organization (VO) that will facilitate communication and collaboration among CISE scientists currently involved in pandemic research through the NSF RAPID program.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate in the United States and in many locations around the world, countless questions remain about next steps for mitigation and response. How will various mitigation methods affect the spread? How will those change as the pandemic progresses or regresses?
Researchers have developed a model that uses social-media and search data to forecast outbreaks of Covid-19 well before they occur.
Without enough test kits, the 1.3-billion-person country is using a gigantic surveillance network to trace and quarantine infected people.
The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), which originated in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, has received significant global attention due to the rapid speed and widespread reach of the outbreak. As of early March 2020, COVID-19 has exceeded 92,000 confirmed cases in 76 countries within a span of two months. In response to this global pandemic, researchers from the University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute have developed a series of visualization and analytical web applications to provide a greater understanding of the pandemic’s scope, and to help officials, healthcare systems, and policy makers worldwide, control and ultimately stop the outbreak.
Are influenza outbreaks and weather patterns connected? Researchers have long known that flu season occurs in the colder months, and that infection rates drop dramatically as the weather warms.
UVA researchers at the Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative are developing computational models to estimate and manage the biological, social and economic impacts of influenza.
While vaccination is the primary and most effective way to prevent sickness and death caused by flu, the CDC reports that less than 40 percent of Americans age 18 and older typically receive a flu shot. This begs the question: what additional mitigation and prevention methods might improve the public health response and policy development for the flu?